Explode or Explore?

Explode or Explore?

How do I respond when things don’t go my way? Do I get angry? Do I get super duper fake nice? Do I pretend it doesn’t bother me? Do I explode? Or do I go exploring? Odds are you’ve responded in all of these ways at one time or another.

I invite you to consider that when things don’t turn out the way you expect, there’s at least one lesson (usually many lessons) to be learned from how things did turn out. My intention was to create x. But the concrete outcome was y. What actions did I take between my intentions and my outcomes? How can I gauge the effectiveness of my actions? Those concrete outcomes are actually the strongest feedback available.

When I first understood this idea…I mean like really GOT IT, it made me dizzy. I was sitting in a workshop in Manhattan listening to a friend get chewed out for making a statement that sounded self-righteous to our workshop leaders. “But it wasn’t my intention to sound that way…” she had said tearfully. They replied: “Forget your intention. Look at your impact.”

I went home that night, opened my notebook and started scribbling:

“My intention was to get 15 new clients by September 15^th. My impact: Zero

My intention was to have a peaceful call with my mother. My impact: we had a fight.

My intention was to finish my book by August 31^st. My impact: 30 pages done.

My intention was create a relationship with this really nice guy I dated for a month or so. My impact: he broke it off.

I listed 15 more intentions and impacts that didn’t match. And I cried. I thought I was living my life pretty well. But the evidence pointed me elsewhere.

Now I had a choice: stew in self-pity and blame for others (for past and present actions) OR go exploring. What could I do differently? How could my attitude change? How could I become a woman whose results would be consistent with her intentions?

What’s not working in your life, your career, your vision? Where’s the opportunity to go exploring?

Hidden Levers and Dials

How do we respond to abuse?

Doubt, denial, disbelief, emotion, volition....un momentito, I think that's the list for when to use the Subjunctive in Spanish...wait, it's coming to me....

oh yeah...denial, hiding, people-pleasing, rage, control, obsession, anxiety, guilt, shame, humor and more.

I call these things responses, but we can also think of them as defenses, coping mechanims, strategies for survival. We've all got 'em. In many many areas, they work for us. Learning to laugh at crazy situations when we're young makes us pretty popular at work when we crack jokes that break the tension. A controlling disposition or obsessive tendency can make us highly skilled at devising and executing detailed plans.

Nothing wrong with humor, leadership or attention to detail. The question becomes...where do those responses/defenses/survival mechanisms get in our way? Do we crack jokes instead of connecting with our feelings or with other people? Do we make ourselves nutty by attempting to control outcomes of situations beyond our control?

Figuring out where our internal operating systems don't work gives us access to understanding ourselves and our choices in new ways.

So I ask you:

What's working for you?

What's not working?

And what can you do about it?